


Home, Noun, You

by wayfared



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Found Family, M/M, Poetry, not sure where it falls timeline-wise but probably season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 23:17:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17990369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wayfared/pseuds/wayfared
Summary: Keith and Lance define home. A poem.





	Home, Noun, You

**Author's Note:**

> This is a poem I wrote a while back! There's not much to say other than I had a lot of fun writing it! I don't flex my poetry muscles enough. Thank you to Colleen, always an amazing friend, for reading it over.

Coran taught them how to scatter the stars across the sky,

How to wave them past with your index finger,

And wipe them away again.

A map, he calls it. A three-dimensional model of

The distance between Castleship and home.

 

Home, verb, kicking off your shoes in the foyer

And corralling them onto the rack cluttered with

Boots (the left heel with a hole),

Sneakers (size 4, streaked with mud), and

Sandals (woven, the strap studded with rhinestones).

 

“You can’t see your brother’s boots on the Castleship map,” Keith scoffs.

“I can,” Lance says. “It’s all there. I wave my hand, and he’s there.”

 

Home, noun, abandoned one room cabin.

Rusty shutters, stained porcelain sink, and

A door with a consistent creak,

Because fixing it would mean remembering the last time

Someone other than you crossed the threshold.

Bridal style, Keith likes to think.

No shoe rack, though. Not enough shoes to fill.

 

“Carry me across the threshold of the control room and you got yourself a home,” Lance says.

“That’s not how it works.” Keith wanes away the stars.

“Yeah, it kind of is.” Lance waxes them back.

 

Home, adjective, loud,

Voices in six-eight time,

Filling beats and off beats like

Dinner in tune, like

The patter of rain on the grain silo out back,

Like thin bedroom walls and thinner patience.

 

Home, adjective, loud,

Like a creaking door,

Pattering on the grain silo out back.

 

“Home, adjective, loud,” Lance says, spreading his palms above him. Keith counts each finger, one per ten light years from shacks and shoe racks. “Like ship bay doors, food goo machines, and emergency meetings.”

“Your voice is loud,” Keith muses. Lance rolls over to face Keith, dropping his hands to the blanket between them. “Home, adjective—”

 

Home, noun, a pulsing light

Or two. One here (Lance waves and waves and waves),

One there (he waves with the other hand, waves and waves and waves).

Here, a slowly rotating sphere, filled with

Kitchen lights after midnight, moonlight on a beach, and

Sunsets, light fractured by the atmosphere into molten shards of

Pink, orange, and blue.

 

“The Garrison has better sunsets than Cuba,” Lance says. “But it colors the sand all the same.”

 

Home, noun, a pulsing light,

There, a diagram of the Castleship, alive with

Kitchen lights in the night cycle, planet reflections filtering into observation decks, and

Stars, scattered across a steel ceiling, illuminating the cavernous room with

Pink, orange, and blue.

 

 “How far do you think this model can go?” Lance asks.

Keith ponders. He raises an index finger and swipes once, then back again.

“Forever,” he says. “But I like where we are.”

 

Home, verb, tossing scratched helmets onto the bench

And ripping a bandage away from the roll with aching teeth.

Verb, hissing as the gauze brushes over broken skin,

Smoothing worry lines with ice packs,

And clapping shoulders on the way to collapsing on couches.

Verb, whispering from lips too tired to speak,

Falling on ears ringing too hard to hear.

 

“That’s home to you?” Lance asks incredulously.

“It’s what we do here. It’s how we care for each other.”

Lance swipes with two index fingers, and the image of the Castleship magnifies.

 

Home, adjective, rude—

 

“That’s not a way to describe home,” Keith protests.

“Just let me finish!”

 

Home, adjective, rude,

I had my hearing checked by the Garrison nurse, Lance says,

And it’s perfectly fine.

 

Home, adjective, brave, carrying home on your back into battle,

Into enemy territory and the bedroom two doors down.

Verb, wielding your sword with your heart on the handle, and listening to

Noun, voices, six-eight time, drown out the creak in the door.

 

Home, adjective, rude—

 

“Look who’s talking now,” Lance teases.

“Shut up,” Keith pouts, cheeks flushed red.

 

Home, adjective, rude,

Your voice, loud, cuts through the fog, and

Makes it hard to cling to hope I’m still alone.

 

Home, adjective, strong, carrying home in your heart

Like thick-soled shoes laced up on Earth, subject to gravity on Arus.

Verb, waving at lights too close and too far, and aiming your rifle at

Noun, distance, the thin wall separating me from you.

 

Home, noun, you.

 

“Me?” Lance asks. He wipes away the stars.

“I guess, you,” Keith hums, rolling to face him, touching the pads of his fingers to Lance’s.

“I guess, you, too,” Lance says, slotting his own in the cracks of Keith’s hand. An imagined _click_ where each one falls into place.

 

Home, noun, you.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Kudos and comments are so appreciated, as well as the attention you've already given by reading it. If you liked it, reblog [this post](https://voltronseatbelts.tumblr.com/post/183200296986/home-noun-you-a-poem) on my [Tumblr](https://voltronseatbelts.tumblr.com/)! And drop by and say hi!


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